


There's Always a Price

by Ambrose



Series: Dare to Write Challenge [43]
Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Gen, Team as Family, somewhere after season 3 finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-22
Updated: 2017-03-22
Packaged: 2018-10-09 07:57:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10407450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ambrose/pseuds/Ambrose
Summary: Claudia reflects on the latest tragedy, and chooses her next course of action.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tveckling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tveckling/gifts).



It's the first thing Claudia learned when she joined the warehouse. There is always a price. She'd experienced it first hand whenever she tweaked with an artefact, or accidentally touched something. Or in the countless lives they lost to artefacts before they found them. Even before the Warehouse, when she was just a kid. Josh had lost so many years of his life, and she - well, she'd thought she'd lost him. She'd thought she was crazy. They all did. She lost as many years, in institutions and to outdated treatments that did more harm than good. She's thankful now for the Warehouse, for the purpose it's given her, for the brother it's given her back, but the scars are still there, and they'll never go away. 

And Steve is the one who's paid the price, and she's not about to accept it. Who cares that the world is safe thanks to him. It's just not fair. She knows Artie thinks she's acting out when she says that, and Myka keeps saying people die all the time, but she can see how she's affected by Helena's death. But Myka dives right into her work and ignores it and lets the pain fester, but Claudia? She's never really been one to put the artefacts on the shelves and forget about them, no. She catalogues them, she remembers them, she makes new things with them, new gadgets, better ones. And this isn't anyone, this is Steve we're talking about. And life may not be fair, and people may die all the time, but he's the best person she's ever known, he's her brother, not quite like Josh but her brother nonetheless, and she knows he'd have done anything for her were the roles reversed. She knows if when his sister died he had an artefact then that could save her, he'd certainly have used it. Just like HG would have saved Christina. 

They spent their time saving people but when it came to them, it seemed inevitable that agents died. But if Claudia's gonna be the next Caretaker, then things would have to change. The same old system for two millennia, watch people die and catalogue everything about their lives. Not again. It's about time someone does something about it. She's not losing a brother again, she thinks as she places a hand on the metronome, claims it as her own despite Artie's glare. 

There's always a price. Steve paid it with his life. 

There's always a price. And she's willing to pay it so Steve doesn't have to. 


End file.
